A Pawn in the Playboy's Game

by Cathy Williams

  He barely saw the picture-perfect-postcard beauty of the little cove, the clear water lapping at the shore, the backdrop of rocks and coconut palms. He barely felt the warmth pressing against him. He sat down, his back against one of the rocks, oblivious to everything but the swirling confusion of his thoughts.

  She had breached his boundaries and no one could accuse him of not making those boundaries perfectly clear. She had strayed into no man’s land.

  And he had known. Deep down, he had known and he had basked in what she was giving him. And now that she had done the unthinkable and confirmed his suspicions, now that she had exposed the heart she had been wearing on her sleeve...

  He raked his fingers through his hair, stood up, sat back down, glared at the perfect scenery.

  How could he still want her? Why did the thought of her walking away fill him with fear and panic? Everything in his life had been so clear-cut before...especially relationships...

  Why was the way forward so hard to see now? When he thought of her vanishing from his life, he felt...empty. It was as if a wilderness of trees had dropped down, obscuring the clear, open horizons of his life, and he just didn’t know how to get past them. He could turn a full circle, and he still wouldn’t be able to see past them to the life he’d had before.

  With a low growl of bewilderment, frustration and inner turmoil, he strode out to the sea, dropping clothes en route, and took to the water.

  * * *

  Laura wanted him to follow her so badly that it was a physical ache in the pit of her stomach. Pride compelled her not to look round. She packed furiously, chucking her clothes into her bag while listening for the sound of his footsteps, and the longer the house remained silent, the more she held back the tears.

  By eight, after a light snack, she resigned herself to the fact that he just wasn’t going to follow her. There was no more talking to be done. In fact, she had no idea where he had gone and she refused point-blank to go out searching for him.

  Even though worry clenched at her stomach when nine o’clock rolled round and there was still no sign of him.

  For the first time since they had arrived, she fell asleep in the bed alone. At some point during the night she half heard him return and her whole body stiffened at the thought of him sliding into bed with her.

  She longed for him but she knew that she had had no option but to be open and truthful.

  Even though the consequences were beyond endurance.

  He didn’t sleep next to her. She heard the soft sound of him rustling and then he left the room.

  * * *

  The silence between them the following day was oppressive. When he addressed her it was with the politeness of a complete stranger and she heard herself responding in the same frozen voice, making sure to avoid eye contact, making sure to keep her distance. On the plane, she buried herself in her book while he sat in front of his computer, working.

  They had nothing more to say and she was miserable.

  They landed back in wintry weather and grey skies. Snow blanketed the ground and reflected her mood. The bright blue, tropical skies were gone for good. Next to her, Alessandro had spent most of the drive on the telephone. One call after another, catching up on work. After wearing nothing but the bright summer wear he had provided for her, she felt weighed down in her thick clothes.

  ‘You don’t have to deliver me back home.’ She broke the silence to glance across at him.

  ‘How do you suggest you get back?’ Alessandro enquired. ‘Do you plan on walking from my house back to your grandmother’s with your suitcase on your back?’

  ‘I don’t want us to finish like this,’ she said shakily. ‘We could still...you know...remain friends...’

  ‘That’s not my style.’ He’d been dumped. For the best because the last thing he needed was the complication of someone falling in love with him, someone expecting him to be the kind of man who was willing or, for that matter, capable of sharing himself. But he couldn’t rid himself of the bitter, sour taste in his mouth. He’d spent hours the evening before walking on the beach, sitting and staring out at the black ocean in a foul mood, and things had not got better since.

  Even more infuriating was the fact that he still wanted her. She had sat on the plane, absorbed in some book, oblivious to him, having dropped her little bombshell, and he had still wanted her.

  He wasn’t used to being dumped and he wasn’t used to being ignored.

  And now she talked about being friends?

  ‘Fine,’ Laura said stiffly. ‘Don’t say that I’m not trying to make peace between us.’

  Alessandro’s mood worsened. ‘I take it your grandmother’s expecting you?’ he said curtly.

  ‘I texted when I’d be back. Look, it’s going to be very awkward if we walk in like enemies...’

  ‘Well, now, maybe you should have considered that before...’ He slid his eyes sideways. ‘And how do you intend to break the news?’

  ‘I’ll just say that spending a long weekend together demonstrated that we didn’t get along.’

  ‘Which is a bald lie, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m not prepared to keep something going for the sake of other people, not when it’s a lie.’ She sighed and looked at his harsh, averted profile. ‘If I’d known... I...well, I never meant to get so wrapped up...’

  He could never fall in love. He had built his entire life ruling out something he saw as a weakness. It was all she could do to stop herself from crying.

  It was beginning to sleet by the time they made it to her grandmother’s house. ‘You don’t have to see me in.’ She turned to him as he killed the engine and sprawled back in the seat to look at her. ‘It’ll be easier if I go in alone and sit her down, break the news. You can...fill your dad in...’

  ‘And then when we next meet we...what, exactly? Pretend we haven’t been lovers? Going to be hard when you’re in love with me and would like nothing better than to find the nearest bed, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Then I’ll make sure to stay away until you’re gone,’ Laura said sharply. She opened the car door, bracing herself for the freezing cold, and was alarmed when he stormed out of his side, reaching to take her case to the front door.

  He rang the doorbell, ignoring her as she scrambled to catch up to him. What the heck was he up to?

  ‘You don’t get to disappear,’ he growled. They stared at one another. Unfair as it was, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from his beautiful face.

  She knew he was going to kiss her. She could read the intent in his dark eyes, but she was nailed to the spot and when his mouth met hers she whimpered and clutched the lapels of his coat. Oh, God, he tasted so sweet. What was she doing? Drowning. She was drowning and she hated herself for it but she couldn’t seem to surface for life-giving air.

  She was hardly aware of the door opening but when she was, she sprang back, her whole body trembling as she met her grandmother’s eyes.

  ‘This isn’t what it looks like!’ She looked at Alessandro, who was staring at her, not saying a word, making her wonder whether he had manoeuvred this situation just to make things difficult for her...because he still wanted her and wasn’t ready to let her go.

  Would he do that?

  She could have slapped him.

  ‘Roberto’s here!’ Edith chirruped, ushering them in, and so he was, along with another man whom Laura recognised, with a sickening jolt, as the local vicar. What on earth was he doing here? Somewhere between entering the house and finding themselves standing in the sitting room, Alessandro had taken her hand, linking her fingers through his.

  Words tumbled over her head. The vicar just happened to be passing by...dropped in for a cup of coffee...was keen to meet the lovebirds...there was nothing more fulfilling than marriage...so many young people choosing to live together...but wha
t a sight for sore eyes they both made...not meaning to presume but he would be honoured should they decide...

  Laura tried and failed to meet Alessandro’s eyes. Was he as shocked as she was? He seemed to be carrying the conversation, laughing and chatting and being horribly, horribly friendly, while she remained in mute silence, barely taking anything in until, after half an hour, she and Alessandro somehow found themselves alone in the sitting room.

  ‘What just happened there?’ Laura whispered. Alessandro had moved to stand by the fireplace and she looked at him, still reeling from the shock of having a future arranged on their behalves while Roberto and her grandmother had looked on contentedly.

  ‘What did you expect me to do?’ he asked fiercely. ‘I was as surprised as you were.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’

  ‘I was too dazed. I barely knew what was going on. Gran never mentioned a word... I can’t believe Father Frank just happened to be passing by. What do we do now?’ she half wailed and was taken aback when he continued to look at her without saying anything. He always knew what to say! Why was he just staring?

  ‘It’s not such a bad thing,’ he muttered, and Laura’s mouth fell open.

  ‘Is that all you have to say? What the heck does that mean anyway?’

  Alessandro raked unsteady fingers through his hair and circled the room, finally coming to rest directly in front of her, a towering, brooding alpha male who, for once, was not his usual composed self. ‘I’m not ready to...end what we have...’

  ‘You’re not ready to end what we have?’ She laughed shortly. ‘You don’t give a damn about anyone but yourself, do you?’ she demanded. ‘You don’t care how messed up I am, being an idiot to fall for you. You don’t care that you’ve put me in an impossible situation. Just so long as you get what you want.’ Tears pricked the backs of her eyes and she couldn’t look at him. When she stared down, her fingers were restively curling and uncurling on her lap.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ he muttered.

  ‘Then why don’t you explain? Tell me what it is I don’t understand.’

  ‘You make my world feel alive. When I’m with you, I feel as though my life makes sense.’

  Laura’s eyes fluttered. She didn’t want to hope. Was this some kind of trick? Was she dreaming? Disoriented, she watched as he dragged a chair to sit next to her and for a few moments hung his head in a gesture that was so unlike him that she was worried. She tentatively laid her hand on his arm and without looking at her he blindly clutched it and held it tightly.

  ‘You told me that you didn’t expect to fall in love with me,’ he said so quietly that she had to strain to hear. He raised his eyes and held hers. ‘I rejected that. It was an automatic reaction. I always had my rules. No love, no commitment. No getting any ideas of permanence, but I hated the thought of not having you around. I hated it when we stopped talking to one another.’

  ‘You hated not being able to carry on having sex with me because I haven’t got past my sell-by date yet,’ Laura persisted stubbornly.

  ‘This is about more than just sex.’

  ‘Strange you never mentioned that before, when I laid my soul bare. Strange all you did was disappear for hours and then sleep in a separate room! Where did you go anyway?’

  ‘Are you jealous?’

  ‘Oh, forget it!’

  ‘I sat on the beach and looked at the sky and did some thinking.’

  ‘And that’s when you decided that you’d keep me on at all costs because you weren’t sick of me quite yet?’

  ‘I told myself that it was a good thing to finish it because I couldn’t handle the expectations of any woman being in love with me.’ He sighed heavily and pressed his thumbs over his eyes, then he looked at her. ‘It never occurred to me that I only started asking myself why I didn’t want what other people seemed to want when I met you. You made me question my pattern of behaviour. I grew up alone. I always saw that as a strength. To become emotionally involved with a woman would be to lose that strength and I never wanted to do that. But...’

  ‘But...?’ Laura pressed, her heart beating so hard she felt it might just burst out of her chest.

  ‘But...I began to find out about my father, about myself. I began sharing myself with you in a thousand small ways and I didn’t even realise I was doing it. I thought it was all about sex because that was how I had programmed myself to think, but it wasn’t and today, driving back here...’

  Laura held her breath, afraid to hope because it was impossible to second-guess this wonderful, complex, utterly fascinating man.

  ‘I was scared,’ he admitted, his amazing cheekbones tinged with a dark flush.

  Something inside her melted. He was scared. That was the most telling thing he had ever said to her and, looking at him, she believed him.

  ‘Are you telling the truth?’ she was still forced to ask, and he smiled crookedly at her.

  ‘Lies are something I don’t do as well. I’m telling the truth. I couldn’t see a future unless you were in it and I knew that that must be love. What else? I’d never felt this way before. I barely recognised the signs and it was only now that it all made sense. I love you. I don’t just want you. I need you and I love you and I can’t stand the thought of you not being next to me every day for the rest of my life. Are you going to say anything? Or are you going to let me ramble on?’

  ‘I’m keen to let you ramble on,’ Laura whispered, and he grinned.

  ‘I wasn’t shaken by seeing the vicar here,’ he said simply. ‘I was glad. I was overjoyed because I want to do precisely what he and my father and your grandmother want us to do. I want to marry you. So...will you, Laura Reid, be my wife?’

  And she smiled. He loved her! She wanted to fling her arms around him and shout from the rooftops at the same time.

  ‘I love you so much, Alessandro,’ she said instead, tracing the fabulous contours of his face with trembling fingers. ‘You’re my whole world and, yes, I’ll marry you. You may have spent your life avoiding commitment but I’m warning you, you’ll have a life sentence with me...’

  ‘I can’t think of anything I’d rather have more...’

  ‘You see, there we have the crunch of the matter.’

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from A BRIDE WORTH MILLIONS by Chantelle Shaw.

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  A Bride Worth Millions

  by Chantelle Shaw

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘I’VE BEEN THINKING.’

  ‘Really?’ Luca De Rossi could not disguise the scepticism in his voice as he glanced at the blonde in bed beside him. Giselle Mercier was exquisite, and she was an inventive lover, but Luca doubted that the French model with baby-blue eyes and a penchant for expensive jewellery was about to announce that she had discovered a solution for world peace, or a cure for cancer.

  His suspicions were confirmed when she held up her left hand so that the enormous diamond on her third finger was set ablaze by the early-morning sunbeams streaming into the penthouse.

  ‘Yes. I�
�ve been thinking that I don’t want to get married at a registry office. I want our wedding to be in a church, or even a cathedral.’

  Giselle glanced towards the window and the view of the elegant spires of the Duomo—Milan’s magnificent cathedral.

  ‘And I want to wear a wedding dress. Think what a fantastic publicity opportunity it would be for De Rossi Designs,’ Giselle purred when Luca frowned. ‘The press would go mad for pictures of a wedding gown designed by the creative director of DRD for his bride.’

  ‘There will be no press coverage of our wedding,’ Luca said tersely. ‘You seem to be forgetting that our marriage will be a temporary arrangement. I only require you to be my wife for one year. After that we will divorce and you will receive one million pounds—as we agreed.’

  Giselle threw back the sheet to reveal her naked, golden-tanned body, and hooked one lissom thigh across Luca’s hip. ‘Perhaps you’ll decide that you don’t want a temporary marriage,’ she murmured. ‘Last night was amazing, chéri. I think we could have something special...’

  Luca muttered something ugly beneath his breath as he swung his legs over the side of the bed. It was true that the sex last night had been good—albeit in the vaguely uninspiring way that sex always was with any of his mistresses. But it meant nothing to him. Just as it always meant nothing.

  He didn’t know why Giselle had suggested that their relationship could be in any way ‘special’. They had made an arrangement that suited both of them and he could not conceal his impatience at her attempt to try and change the rules.

  He strode across the room and stared moodily out of the window, while his mistress ran her eyes hungrily over his bare buttocks and muscular thighs. In the sunlight, Luca’s thick black hair, which had a tendency to curl at his nape, gleamed like polished jet. His broad shoulders were tanned a dark bronze, the same as the rest of his body, even his buttocks, which made Giselle wonder if he sunbathed in the nude.